The removal of four dams on the klamath river will restore hydrologic connectivity to the upper klamath river basin

For anadromous fish habitat and ecological processes not available for over 100 years will be accessible. Traditional ecological knowledge as well as historical accounts provide US some general understanding of the historical movement patterns and distribution of anadromous fish although greater understanding is required to inform future restoration and fish management actions. For this reason monitoring plans focused on evaluating the reestablishment of salmon populations as they return to their historical range in the klamath basin is critical. Of particular interest is how many salmon and steelhead disperse into the reconnected watershed and the timing of that dispersal. The questions of interest include what the species and life history specific timing of fish movement into the restoration reach are i.e. location of iron gate DAM and upstream throughout the upper klamath basin and habitat used by fish as they move through the restoration site. This project will result in abundance estimates of salmon and steelhead entering the reach previously blocked by the dams and follow their migrations to spawning grounds. Understanding the time of movement and habitat use of adult fish moving upstream to historical habitat will inform current and future restoration actions to effectively use available funds in the most impactful manner guiding future restoration efforts in the newly accessible habitats. In addition these data will provide a foundation for assessing key endangered species act viability criteria such as diversity spatial structure and abundance. Our study combines a sonar fish counting station species composition sampling and radio telemetry with study designs adapted from the elwha river and other largescale DAM removals. This effort will be guided by the expertise of tribal members NGO staff and federal and state agency staffs that have implemented monitoring on the elwha river or other coastal rivers throughout the western united states. The project will provide a toolset to support information to inform the sequencing and prioritization of future restoration and monitoring in the klamath river as well as other DAM removals around the world. We will address these objectives with a combination of multibeam imaging sonar and radio telemetry. Sonar imagery will provide imagery of passing fish on a continuous basis while weekly instream tangle net sampling in the vicinity of the sonar site will provide field based data to transform imagery into species specific passage estimates. The tangle net sampling will also provide fish for radio telemetry tagging. Monitoring of radio tagged fish with fixed sites and mobile tracking will provide detailed information on movement and habitat use as adult salmon and steelhead migrate and spawn in the newly accessible habitat and the environmental variables that affect their migration.